OpenType Font Management

[gwpriester]

I know that there was a question recently about Adobe type support for Windows XP. I received a press release today from Adobe about their OpenType font system and this reference to font management:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Advanced Linguistic Support

Customers with international publishing requirements also benefit from OpenType. OpenType format fonts may contain over 65,000 glyphs, and characters for additional languages, such as Czech, Polish, Greek, and Russian. OpenType also supports Unicode, so character access, and text import, and export are more reliable. Adobe’s entire Type Library has been converted to the OpenType format. The new fonts can be used in documents alongside existing PostScript® Type 1 and TrueType fonts without conflicts. OpenType fonts are natively supported in Mac OS X, Windows® 2000, and Windows XP. Older operating systems can obtain OpenType support through Adobe Type Manager® (ATM™) Light, a free system software component download available at www.adobe.com/products/atmlight/main.html. For more information about OpenType, please visit Adobe’s Web site: www.adobe.com/type/opentype
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gary

[gwpriester]

I know that there was a question recently about Adobe type support for Windows XP. I received a press release today from Adobe about their OpenType font system and this reference to font management:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Advanced Linguistic Support

Customers with international publishing requirements also benefit from OpenType. OpenType format fonts may contain over 65,000 glyphs, and characters for additional languages, such as Czech, Polish, Greek, and Russian. OpenType also supports Unicode, so character access, and text import, and export are more reliable. Adobe’s entire Type Library has been converted to the OpenType format. The new fonts can be used in documents alongside existing PostScript® Type 1 and TrueType fonts without conflicts. OpenType fonts are natively supported in Mac OS X, Windows® 2000, and Windows XP. Older operating systems can obtain OpenType support through Adobe Type Manager® (ATM™) Light, a free system software component download available at www.adobe.com/products/atmlight/main.html. For more information about OpenType, please visit Adobe’s Web site: www.adobe.com/type/opentype
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gary

[diniel]

Flashback! I can remember seeing the Adobe ATM logo each time a Windows 3.1 PC booted up.... never seen it since http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[RAMWolff44]

So are Open Type fonts free from Adobe as well or ???? Where can we obtain them?? Does Xara X1 support Open Type?

Thanks

[gwpriester]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> OpenTypeâ„¢ is a new cross-platform font file format developed jointly by Adobe and Microsoft. Adobe has converted the entire Adobe Type Library into this format and now offers thousands of OpenType fonts. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The above quote is from the Adobe OpenType page.

I have a font installed on my computer called Warnock which I believe is an OpenType font probably installed with Illustrator CS. The font is available in the font list but I do not see the font in the Font Navigator list of fonts. So my guess is one needs Adobe Type Manager (the free Lite version is about 12.5 MB as a download) to manage the fonts on your computer.

Gary

[Soquili]

Richard, you probably already have Open Type fonts on your PC. Since Windows 2000 many of the fonts installed with windows are Open Type.

[amoore]

Gary

it's not that you need Adobe ATM. It's that FontNav predates OpenType, so it doesn't recognize the format. At least, that's true of the FontNav version I have. I understand that Corel has licensed FontNav for continued use with Corel apps, so if you may have a more recent version.

In addition, I'm still not clear on whether there's a single OpenType format, or a kind of T1 version and a kind of TT version that are otherwise completely compatible.

Adobe has been converting their fonts for a while now.

[Soquili]

Allison, Open Type is two versions. The version with the PostScript font information has a file extension of .otf and the version that is True Type information has a file extension of .ttf

Open Type basically puts the information in side a wrapper that is cross platform compatable. The wrapper acts as an interpretor that converts between PostScript and TrueType to the OS it's running on.

[Klaus Nordby]

Alison is right: older versions of FontNav do not support OpenType, whereas the latest version bundled with CorelDraw 12 does - FontNav 5. Maddeningly, Bitstream does NOT sell this excellent FN5 to end users, I know for I have emailed them and begged them for a copy, but no dice (some months ago, at least).

[amoore]

Thanks for the clarification, Soquili. I'll try to keep it straight.

Klaus, AFAIK, Bitstream has dumped FontNav in favor of FontReserve. FontNav exists only for the Corel license.

I've looked at the screenshots for FontReserve, and I don't like what I see. Way too cluttered. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif